Having spent the last ten years mining a comedy seam about getting older, I think of myself as self appointed head girl of the sisterhood which is women over 50 with a dry white wine and lockable Tupperware habit. But then I was always prone to self importance. I’ve also just done a posh visiting research fellowship at the University of Oxford studying the ageing process which sounds very grand but don’t be too impressed because on a good day it was wonderful, but on a bad day I thought they might have mistaken me for someone else. It’s a massive topic, but the one thing it made me determined to do was to gather support and interest in a movement to help re-launch and reclaim our older age - hence “Grey Pride”.

My studies coincided with me turning 60 which is a stylish way to apply for your first student rail card. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed presenting it at stations. It is not what people expect, and this I suppose is the point. We need to shake up the whole process of getting older. We need to celebrate the plus sides of ageing, and to emphasise that people once they become “old” (whatever that now means ) still feel the same inside as they always did, but just with more bad hair days and a tendency to leave some lipstick on their teeth. We are still the mischievous young people we always were with a zest for life and a sack load of life skills and wisdom to add to it. We don’t want to be labelled up just as needy and lonely and negative, we want the world to recognize us for who we are.

The trouble with the word old is that it really is just about the most universally negative one in the language and is saturated in negativity and need and despair. This is surely the first thing we need to change. We need to shift attitudes, and to make being properly old a more appealing place to be heading than it currently is. This feels like a reasonable aspiration given that a third of the world’s population is already over 50.

No-one should pretend that being old and frail and lonely is something to celebrate. It isn’t. But we can celebrate the fact that old people whatever their needs are still the astonishing people they always were.

Previous generations looked forward to being elders, being the head of the family, being the person to predict a good potato harvest and being valued for their wisdom. Now we need to go out of our way to champion and celebrate the old.
The solution is not simple. We are not a homogenous lump, and there is a huge mismatch between what the world sees and what we feel inside. But we need to make a start and getting older has never been more interesting or more important. Making old the new rock and roll is going to be challenging, but we need to reclaim our older age.

Maybe a good way to start is by contemplating some of the upsides of being older.

Upside No 1
Being able to spot gormlessness at 100 meters and before suspect in question has even opened their mouth. This is useful in many ways. For example, I can weigh up the best supermarket check out operative with 100% certainty and choose the fastest lane on offer. Often, interestingly my radar will point me to the oldest person on the check out as the one who will know the difference between a mango and a tangerine and who will also be able to trouble shoot problems rather than simply call for the supervisor. Sometimes of course my radar is useful because you positively want to seek out gormlessness in a shop assistant. I'm thinking in particular of when I am "taking back" as in I've gone off it, or if I'm honest when I've already worn it but have gone off it. Then my friends the gormless person in the shop is what you want, not what you want to avoid.

Find out more about Judith by visiting her website here.